


Dive

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Forest Cabins, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 16:11:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19154488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Clint aches, full body, all the way into those places of him that aren’t physical. He’s supposed to go by the tower, or by HQ, do a debriefing, but he’s got another place to be first.





	Dive

Clint aches, full body, all the way into those places of him that aren’t physical. He’s supposed to go by the tower, or by HQ, do a debriefing, but he’s got another place to be first. “Months, Tony. Radio silence, no updates, on routine scouting that should’ve taken a weekend at most.”

“Exactly!” Tony argues. “Exactly. That’s why you need to go to medical and debrief.”

Clint shakes his head. He’s been nauseated since he got the flag to go _home._  A weird, bitter little coil deep in his gut that didn’t come from the bruises and the hunger and the almost dying.

“I gotta see him, Tony. I gotta go to him, now,” Clint says. He’s not arguing. Tony and Steve and Nat, they can throw all they have at him, but fuck if he _isn’t_ going to a cabin lost in the woods before he fixes this thing in his gut.

“It’s been months, Clint, what’s a few more hours?” Steve says in that gentle-but-actually-patronizing tone that makes Clint grind his teeth.

“Can I call ‘im?” He asks, licking the split on his lips. “Any of you been by? Let him know I’s okay?”

They all share guilty looks, Steve’s possibly the most shamed. “You know the rules, Barton. We gotta debrief first.”

Clint looks at them appalled. “Christ. Does he even know I’m alive?”

Steve shrugs and Nat won’t look at him and Tony just says, “He probably heard the news.”

“Fuckin’ idiots,” Clint sneers as he shoves past them. “Just gimme an hour, dammit.”

They don’t stop him, surprisingly, which doesn’t make him feel better. His stomach clenches, and it’s not from the three days of straight caffeine.

—

He gets to their cabin and its…

It’s not what he expected. The kitchen looks like it’s never been used. Parts of the counter almost look worn to the base, they’ve been wiped so thoroughly. The fridge, the pantry, empty. The living room could be from some rustic, manly-man magazine bullshit, if it weren’t for the thinnest layer of dust coating the tv, the gaming system.

Mortal Kombat is still in, and Clint frowns cause certainly James hasn’t spent all his time playing that. Not after Clint wiped the floor with him the night before he left.

There’s a ring around the toilet bowl, meaning it’s been unused, and Clint’s half-capped toothpaste is put away, but the sink is bone dry and dusty. There’s actually dust on the toothbrushes, and in their holder. Not much, a week or so’s worth, but still.

The bedroom though, Clint might actually be sick. It reeks, the scent of sweat and smells he refuses to identify. The bed has the same blanket and no sheets from before he left. Boxes of pizza and take out.

It looks like someone took a sledgehammer to the dresser, to the memorabilia on top. He doesn’t know if it was a fight or a hurricane or a freaking alien invasion that destroyed this sacred room, but the coil in his gut springs loose and despite the bleeding cuts, bruised ribs, the headache pounding in his molars, Clint _runs._

—

Months. No one heard from any of those who left. They lost all communication. They _got_ lost. For most of ‘em, wasn’t so bad. Pepper was there, Loki tagged along with Thor. Scott got to bring Hope. But no one had thought Bucky was ready, despite everything.

Clint hadn’t liked it, leaving him alone in the cabin, his only contact Culson and Fury.

He’d been very heavily outvoted, and silenced in ways that were almost cheating.

Now though, now he knows he was right to want James with him. The woods are thick around their cabin, heavily packed, and even he can’t avoid all the branches carving at his face.

Clint’s good with heights. Comes with the territory of being an Avenger’s archer. But winter had come while he was away and he doesn’t have time to make sure all the branches are going to be sturdy enough. He knows where he’s going.

They have a place, one none of the others knew about.  A private escape, all their own, quiet, secluded, undisturbed.

That’s where James will be.

Rain starts, ice-cold and slushy and Clint can’t see, can’t hear for the aids crushed beneath a boot. His head is pounding in his chest, his heart in his feet, and his feet in his head and something cruel says, _not fast enough._

He’s not fast enough, never has been. Ain’t that why Peitro’s body landed in his arms?

He pushes himself, harder, faster, peels his quiver from his back, snaps his bow to drop it, but he’s flagging. Too many months of pushing too hard and not nearly enough food or drink.

He’s slowing, and the coil bursting in his chest says he doesn’t have time, but he breaks the edge trees, nearly flies off.

He frowns. “No,” he says, birds startling around him. “ _No,”_ he demands. He can’t be wrong. But a glance to his left tells him somehow, someway, in his state he was _off_ by about half a mile.

He can see him, see the glint of Jame’s metal arm and the tree that lives impossibly right on the edge of the world.

There’s nothing but a raging river below, fury fed by winter’s ice and rain. James swings lazily from the rope, dangles over it.

“James!” Clint calls. He pats himself for something, a gun, a flare, a fucking cigarette. Anything he can use to attract attention. He’s suddenly furious with himself for dropping the quiver and snapping the bow. “Jamie!’ He calls again.

James swings out, too far. The rope is old. He’s not holding on tight enough. Clint can almost see the bottle in his hand.

Bucky leans out, out, _out,_ over the edge, fingers outstretched like he’s reaching for the horizon. “I’m home! I’m here!” His throat aches, and he’s not sure his voice is working. Bucky doesn’t turn, doesn’t even flinch, and the slushy ice-rain around them pounds harder and Clint is struggling to see. He watches as Bucky slips, catches himself, and his whole body lurches forward.

Like he could catch him from this distance. He jumps, waves his arms, makes every noise he can manage. “Turn around, god dammit. Turn around you goddamned self-destructive asshat. Jesus Christ, Jamie, please!”

Clint watches, helpless, as the rope begins to snap. Bucky sees it, or hears it, but he doesn’t seem to care. He leans back, lets the bottle fall from his hand. He lets go of the role, holds it with his legs, arches his hands over his head.

It looks like he’s going to dive backwards. Like this is a pool and he’s just showing off.

“Please,” Clint whispers, “don’t do this.”

For a split second it looks like Bucky somehow heard him. His head tilts and he looks off in the distance and Clint’s hard thuds. “Me, me, look at me.”

And then Bucky lets go completely, arms pointed, body a straight line.

It’s a fucking perfect dive, but Clint sinks into the mud, pounds his already split knuckles into the earth screaming “Bucky!” until he can’t breath, and the rain has stopped, and night fallen.

—

There’s not a note. No goodbye letter, no apology, no accusation. It makes sense.

Goodbyes are rare and usually horrible in this life. Still.

Clint cleans through the wreckage of what was once their room; broken glass, rotting food, shredded posters. Every scrap of paper he carefully smooths out, desperate for _anything._

Bucky never did like writing things down. “Can’t undo it once it’s written.”

Clint scrubs tired hands across his salt-burned face. “Helluva lotta things can’t be undone, Buck.”

He's about gotten the room in some semblance of order. Bed made, new dresser, nondescript hotel Art back on the wall.

Not home anymore; just another place to hide out in.

But while he’s cleaning out the shattered wardrobe he finds a box. Small, cardboard, clearly constantly handled. It’s got something on it, Bucky’s elegant but unreadable script across the top.

Clint doesn’t want to, but he opens it. He sobs, full body and deep from his broken ribs, the first since that day in the forest.

Two thin bands fall into his hands, beautiful things that look like they’re made from granite.

Clint weeps then, fits one to his finger, and wonders how long Bucky carried these around before they ended up in drawer.

He sobs until he is sick, until he’s numb, until he’s curled under a blanket on a cold floor and thinks, _just an hour earlier, and I migh’ve made it._


End file.
